


Down In The River To Pray

by ReaperWriter



Series: These Lines Across My Face [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Faith is a Funny Thing, Found Family, Gen, Nicolo is Conflicted, Religion and Soul Searching, heart to heart talks, love is love is love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:15:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25565749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaperWriter/pseuds/ReaperWriter
Summary: She dropped her hand. “But truly, Nicolo, if I’ve caused you offense, please, let me right it.”“You’ve done nothing to me, Gwynog.”He stepped away, putting his back to her and lifting free the filled water skin. He turned from the shore, ready to climb the embankment when she asked, “Is this because you were a priest?”The waterskin fell from his suddenly nerveless hands. “Did Jesus or the Virgin tell you that?”Gwynog moved around to face him again, her face open and guileless. “No. Yusuf did. Did you mean it to be a secret?”****After Nicolo learns exactly who Gwynog is, he fears her condemnation for fleeing his vows to the Church. When she seeks him out, what she has to tell him instead surprises him even more.
Series: These Lines Across My Face [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1852702
Comments: 12
Kudos: 95





	Down In The River To Pray

“You’ve been avoiding me.” 

Nicolo froze, the water skin in his hand still dunked into the Jordan. The lilting voice, speaking to him in Church Latin, stirred an emotion in him he’d barely felt since he and Yusuf had stopped trying to kill each other and had settled into their strange comradery. Fear. Stomach clenching, toe curling, ice down his spine fear.

That first night, at Ayla, after the mysterious third woman of their dreams had lead them back to the house she’d rented for them all, cooked them a meal, and then bid them good night so she could rise with the dawn check on an expectant mother she’d made the acquaintance of on her journey, Quỳnh and Andromache had sat up and shared stories of her. This holy God-Chosen virgin, faithful to her faith to the point of celibacy after all these years.

Andromache had sneered at the notion, even as she admitted respect for the work this mysterious Gwynog did. Learned in medicine, capable in organization, skilled in diplomacy. Not a warrior, she instead walked the path she believed she was called to. 

The path he had once been called to. The Church. The priesthood. Later, a Holy War.

And he had abandoned it all.

What would she think of him, this most faithful servant of the Lord?

So yes, perhaps he’d stayed out of her way as they’d traveled together north through the Levant.

“I’m not,” he grumbled.

“Nicolo,” Gwynog sighed, coming down the river embankment with more water skins of her own and her boots off. “There are but five of us, and you are not at all subtle.”

Nicolo stared at the water, the supposed river where Jesus himself was baptized. Before coming to the Holy Land, he expected such sites to be somehow magnificent. Awe inspiring. And indeed, the Holy Sepulcher with it’s church had been. But this was just a river. Not so different from the Polcevera back home.

“Have I done something to hurt you, Nicolo?” A small hand, more callused than he expected for one not sworn to the sword, caught his free hand. “If so, please tell me. I’ve no wish to hurt you. Any of you.”

Nicolo laughed at that. “No, you’re the only one not likely to kill one of us for sport, aren’t you?”

That earned him an exasperated sigh. “Do they still call it training? Andromache and Quỳnh? When they decide fighting to the death is a fine sport.” 

“Warriors have to train,” Nicolo replied.

“Many do so just fine with wooden wasters,” Gwynog shot back. “It leaves fewer wounds in the mortal ones for me to stitch.”

“Fair point.”

She dropped her hand. “But truly, Nicolo, if I’ve caused you offense, please, let me right it.”

“You’ve done nothing to me, Gwynog.”

He stepped away, putting his back to her and lifting free the filled water skin. He turned from the shore, ready to climb the embankment when she asked, “Is this because you were a priest?”

The water skin fell from his suddenly nerveless hands. “Did Jesus or the Virgin tell you that?”

Gwynog moved around to face him again, her face open and guileless. “No. Yusuf did. Did you mean it to be a secret?”

Nicolo closed his eyes, squeezing his hands into fists. “Yes. Or, no. I don’t know.”

“Oh, Nicolo.” Small work rough hands cupped his face. “You think I would condemn your choice to leave?”

“You have not left it.”

“Look at me, please.”

Nicolo opened his eyes, looking down into a pair of brown ones, unlike Yusuf’s in all but their kindness. “I am sworn to no order still in existence. I owe no fealty to the Pope now in Rome. The vows I hold are between me and Christ who is my husband, and he is more than any earthly church and any men who would speak for him. It is his word I follow, not the earthly dictates of a so-called church.”

“I...but….” Nicolo gaped at her. “I broke my vows.”

“Were they vows you made freely of your own choosing?”

Nicolo stopped, swallowing. Were they? He was a younger son. His choices were always condottieri or church. He’d chosen church before he’d been old enough to know. And then when the church demanded holy warriors, he’d gone. “I...I don’t know anymore.”

“You saw first hand what the Church did at Jerusalem. Is that what you think Christ would truly have wanted?”

“No!”

“God raised you to this life we have Nicolo. He has called you to this for a purpose. You must find your path in it, as a warrior like Andromache and Quynh. Or as someone like me, a servant of people. Or a path only you know.” Her thumbs stroked his cheeks, brushing aside tears he hadn’t even realized were falling. “He made you, and he loves you. As you are.”

A shudder ran through him, one last question remaining. “What about...the vow to be...to remain…”

“Chaste? Are you still celibate, Nicolo?”

Breathe caught in his chest, he could only nod. 

“Do you wish to be?”

He blinked, gaping at her. “What?”

“Nicolo, long before the Holy Mother first came to me, when I first understood what it was for people to love...carnally. I didn’t want it. I never have. The idea of being touched that way.” She let her hands fall away from his face and a shiver racked her body. “Chastity is no hardship in my life, Nicolo. It never has been. Being called to perpetual virginity has been a relief.”

“Oh,” he said dumbly. 

She reached out, taking his hand. “But God is love in all its forms. I’m not naïve for not having a lover. I know what Quynh and Andromache are to each other.” She paused. “And I know that sometimes men are as they are, to one another.”

Flames licked Nicolo’s face. “That’s not...I don’t...he doesn’t…”

“God is love,” Gwynog said again, squeezing his hand. “In love for the stranger. For our friends. For our kin. For our lovers, where we find them. In our love for God. Don’t be ashamed of love, Nicolo, wherever you find it.”

He nodded. “I...thank you.”

“Any time you would speak of God, you always have my ear. I know how Andromache can be.” Gwynog let go, stooping to pick up the water skins she’d brought. “Help me with these?”

“Of course.” He took one and turned back to the river, watching as she moved back down to the bank, singing softly in a language he didn’t know.

This was the grace he’d come to the Holy Land seeking. He just hadn’t expected to find it in a man who’d been his enemy and a woman who’d kept her faith for half a millennia.

**Author's Note:**

> So hi, yes, apparently this is going to just be an ongoing thing.
> 
> Yusuf got a short seen with Gwyn at the beginning of their relationship, but I wanted to take time and explore the interaction she might have with Nicolo as he's working through his own leaving the church head space and being suddenly confronted with someone who, on the surface, might have every cause the judge that.
> 
> I also wanted to explore what might entice someone to the life of a holy virgin in the first place. Medieval nuns in later periods got up to (and disciplined for) all kinds of sexual shenanigans of both the wlw and mlw varieties. However, I suspect that for some women, a life of chastity was also an outlet for those who didn't desire sex and were on the aro-ace spectrum, as Gwyn is here. While I am probably somewhere on the bisexual/demi-sexual scale, I am not aro-ace myself. I've tried to be respectful in my representation of Gwyn based on discussions with friends who are on the more sex repulsed end of the spectrum. If I have screwed that up, please let me know.


End file.
